You may have a hard time spelling phthalates, but there’s no avoiding them. They’re in the air you breathe, water you drink and foods you eat. And this ubiquity may carry a price, particularly for young boys, emerging data suggest. Including a drop in their IQ.

China on Monday denied that its dams were reducing water levels on the Mekong River and blamed problems along the river on unusually dry weather, but it also offered to share more data with its neighbors. Leaders of Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos, badly hit by the Mekong’s biggest drop in water levels in decades,…

Workers who apply certain pesticides to farm fields are twice as likely to contract melanoma, a deadly form of skin cancer, according to a new scientific study. The researchers identified six pesticides that, with repeated exposure, doubled the risk of skin cancer among farmers and other workers who applied them to crops. The findings add…

Oil companies with their sights on drilling for oil off Alaska on Wednesday said President Barack Obama’s offshore oil announcement allows them to press ahead with big projects there. Two companies — Royal Dutch Shell and ConocoPhillips — have spent large sums to secure drilling rights in the remote Chukchi Sea, only to see their…

President Barack Obama is to announce on Wednesday a plan to permit exploration for oil and natural gas off the coast of Virginia as a way to create jobs and reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil. Obama, who wants Congress to move a stalled climate change bill, has sought to reach out to Republicans by…

US EPA has announced the timing for major sources of greenhouse gases to revise their permits, or to obtain new permits under the new greenhouse gas (GHG) reporting and permitting regulations. The first stationary sources will be required to get Clean Air Act permits that cover greenhouse gases in January, 2011. EPA is trying to…

The economic growth in much of Asia has been quite remarkable in the last few decades. Unfortunately, along with growth comes intense pollution and atmospheric degradation. Pollutants from the region are being carried upward into the stratosphere during the monsoon season. Findings from a new study conducted by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric…

A severe winter has left 4.5 million dead animals in stockyards across the Mongolian steppes, and many poor herders face the loss of all their property just before the important breeding season. About a tenth of Mongolia’s livestock may have perished, as deep snows cut off access to grazing and fodder. The damage to the…

Philadelphia officials asked a state regulator on Thursday to ban the natural-gas drilling technique known as hydraulic fracturing until its environmental effects, especially on drinking water, are studied. The City Council urged the Delaware River Basin Commission to deny a drilling permit to Stone Energy Corp, a Louisiana-based oil and gas company, or to any…

Yesterday we posted on the just-released Clean Edge trends report for 2010 that outlines some of the prominent trends in clean tech and renewable energy. One emerging trend mentioned in the report is the commoditization of carbon, where captured emissions are bought and sold as feedstock for other industrial processes.